Tonight (well last night)
Tonight
By Michelle Weisblat-Dane
Here I sit on my porch with the darkness of night surrounding it in this late hour. Candles sit on the table next to me shedding the only source of light. The sounds of cars driving by as they splash through the rain soaked street. The cold damp air wraps around me like a cloak. My only friend and companion a black cat sits in my lap to comfort me and help keep me warm. As I stroke him and listen to him purr I realize how alone I really am. How empty not only my life is but I am. I spent my life being a caretaker for my husband and for my children. Now that my husband is gone and the children almost grown I have no life. I have no friends. I am just an empty shell.
I asked an acquaintance how they handled being alone. They answered; they have their friends and their music. Then they asked me did I feel there was something bad about being single? That was an interesting question. The immediate answer was yes. Then it got me to thinking why? Why to me is it so bad to be single? Well one I hate to be alone. Two, I realize when I was the only child in my school that had parents that were divorced. I was so made fun of for this. I was taunted by things like "what your mothers to fat to find any one" “no wonder you dad left your mom look at her" (yes my mother was about as over weight as I am now). In the world I grew up in it was wrong to be single. My Aunt (my mothers adopted sister) remained single her whole life. I remember how every one teased her about it. So obviously I have picked up a stigma to being single. That you are a complete failure if you remain single, you are, in some way completely undesirable.
I met young women tonight who was playing guitar at one of the local establishment. She had a beautiful voice. I paused at the door to listen. She invited me in. In between her songs as well as the songs themselves, she told about her life. She had two other friends she had grown up with who by the time they were 23 were married and had children so she left Illinois to come to Colorado to where she could be with other single people who also enjoyed being single. She was very strong. Even though she had lost her job she was now determined to make a living playing her music. It didn't pay as well but she was defiantly enjoying it. It gave her an opportunity to meet other people and make more friends in her new community.
I realized in that moment listing to her that I had missed so much of life. I was so busy wanting to settle down that I missed the chance to meet people and make friends; the chance to just hang. I was so envious of my daughter who had a son at 18. She could go out whenever she wanted come home whenever she wanted. Make friends in town and at the local bar. While I stayed home and took care of the kids.
I have nothing that is me. With out my kids and my husband to care for there is nothing there. My life revolved around them, without someone to revolve my life around, I have no life.
Now aging has set in, I am 45. I tired hanging out at the night clubs and bars. Most of the people there are the younger crowd and I don't fit in. If there are older they’re there as a couple. It’s a small town anyone who is friends with my daughter instantly hate me the minuet they find out who I am. I really don't have the money to hang out and drink.
Money is a big factor in finding someone. After 25 years of marriage I was left with nothing, no money, no house, no job, just a small amount of money from the government which will get smaller as the kids leave home. It certainly isn’t the income my husband brought in. No one wants to go out with or have a relationship with someone who is not fanatically stable. Ideally they are looking for someone who makes a good living. Whom can afford to hang out or spend money. I know I would be looking for someone like that. I came across a dating service. They had some ideal men that where really were looking for some just like me. They were good looking professional men that made decent money an din some cases really rich. I was assured these men were really interested in meeting someone like me if I had $3000 to pay there fee. It makes sense. These are guys looking for women who are also professionals, well educated and intelligent women. I know I am all these things and their perfect candidate. I’ll just never have the money now that I’m disabled. The two major car accidents I was in started the damage to my neck and back. The dedication of taking care of my husband including the many times I had to pick him up off the ground or carry him to the bathroom and back, destroyed my back.
I feeling that I am getting old. If I don't find someone soon I will be alone for the rest of my life, however long or short it may be. I have already missed out on the chance of having any kids with whom ever may comes along that I might fall in love with.
I married someone who was 15 years older then me. I new that when I married my husband, he would most likely die before me. I know this time I would like to be with someone younger then me. It also wouldn’t be fair for them to have to take care of someone whose body its getting old before its time from such a hard life.
Finding anyone around my age is difficult. It foolish of me to think anyone really younger then me would want me. Most of the decent guys my age are already taken, or are married, quite a few are unhappily married but would never leave their wives because of their kids. The few that are left no woman would rightful want, nor are they anyone I should be dating. However, I find myself accepting them anyway, rather then being alone.
Finding someone much older then me, I am likely to have to watch them die. I don’t think I could handle that again. I have already had to watch two people I was close to do die. This time you would find me a basket case and I’m already close to that now. If my husband had died 10 years earlier I might have stood a chance. If he had died 10 years from now I would have more of an opportunity to meet someone who had also lost a spouse.
I guess I have to learn to be single. Even hearing the word terrifies me. I remember the first time someone asked me my marital status for a bank account; it was shortly after my husband had died. Married, divorced or single were my choices. “Then I guess your single,” the clerk said. I panicked I can’t be single no not me. The horror of the thought of being single and alone hit me like a ton of bricks. Part of that fear, is that I was so very alone and isolated as a child. I had to find someone and someone quick. When my husband died I wanted to have some there immediately to take his place. I didn’t want to be single. Almost a year later I have not found anyone, anyone that really wants me. Tragically I would have taken anyone the first person who came along. Why? Because, I can’t stand the thought of being single or of being alone.
I am just as alone now as I was when I was 19. I have no real friends. I have a lot of acquaintances. I have as the modern day term goes “fuck buddies”. I have a lot of guys whom I am there best friend, I am the only person in the world they can talk to about anything and shockingly to them feel comfortable about it. In some cases I’m closer to them then the wives that they will never leave. It’s like the ancient custom of having companions. To bad in our society I can’t get paid for it, I wouldn’t have to worry about money I’m very good at it. But that would be prostitution and in this county it illegal.
Any friends I had when my husband died left. I never really had any of my own friends they were all our friends. The married couples we knew have all been polite but it’s like having a third wheel. They soon left out of politeness and being uncomfortable. My husband had many friends of his own although I know when he died he really didn’t think so. They with the exception of one have all abandoned me. I have searched out my childhood friends but they are a long way away and distance and time made then no more the acquaintances as well. So I find myself alone again and fear that this is what life has in store for me. Like the darkness that surrounds me.